Greenhouse gases go underground

WYOMING

Carbon
dioxide, produced by burning fossil fuels such as oil and coal, is
the major culprit in climate change, trapping heat and warming the
planet. Now the federal government wants to remove it from the
atmosphere by burying it all over the West, starting at the Teapot
Dome oil field in Wyoming.

The Department of Energy plans
to permanently store carbon dioxide underground in natural
reservoirs such as depleted oil and gas fields. Canada and Norway
have already begun testing such storage, and experiments at the
Teapot Dome site could begin by 2005. Engineers will inject
liquified carbon dioxide gas from an Exxon/Mobil natural gas plant
into the old oil reservoir and cap it off, then monitor for
leakage. If testing proves successful, the government hopes that
private industry will spring up around the country to "sequester"
carbon dioxide captured from power plant emissions.

Paradoxically, fossil fuel companies stand to make the most from
the scheme. The oil industry already uses carbon dioxide injection
to boost output from declining fields; the extra oil squeezed out
would make it profitable to keep the carbon dioxide underground
permanently.

But environmentalists are pragmatic about
the process. "We’d rather use our old oil fields to dispose
of carbon dioxide and get more oil out, than get oil from another
country that’s not disposing of carbon dioxide," says David
Doniger, climate policy director of the Natural Resources Defense
Council, noting that even with increased energy efficiency and
renewable energy, the country is still going to use significant
fossil fuel. John Nielsen, energy project director of Western
Resource Advocates, says, "Given the growing evidence of global
warming and its huge economic, environmental and social risks, we
need to look at any and all options to address it."